Tag: St. Louis

I’ve been working on a research project in collaboration with the Missouri State Archives, and in the course of this research project the folks at the archives came across an 1859 court case involving Ulysses S. Grant and his Father-in-Law that I have never seen before. I wish I could say that the court case provides groundbreaking insights into Grant’s experiences while living in St. Louis (1854-1859) but instead it adds more confusion and mystery to that story.

On August 11, 1858, Philip Rothenbucher loaned $200 to Grant, his Father-in-Law Frederick Dent, and Harrison Long, who I’m unfamiliar with. The promissory note states that “Twelve months after date we, or either of us” promise to pay the loan back at ten percent interest. A year went by and no one had paid back the $200, so Rothenbucher sued at the St. Louis County Circuit Court on September 6, 1859. Rothenbucher wrote a testimony and produced the promissory note signed by Grant, Dent, and Long. Apparently no one on the defense appeared in court, and on September 7 Rothenbucher was awarded $222.40 ( only 1 percent interest of original the note).

But here’s where things get weird.

The St. Louis County Sheriff reported that he successfully executed a writ of summons to Dent and Long to appear in court, but that “the other defendent U S Grant not found in my County.” Dent and Long were therefore held responsible for the $222.40 due to Rothenbucher while Grant was dismissed from the case. I suppose this outcome was also possible because of the wording of the original note states that “we, or either of us” would figure out a way to pay back the debt. What’s weird to me is that Grant was still in St. Louis in September 1859. In fact, he wrote a letter to his father on August 20 reporting that he was waiting to hear back from a Board of Commissioners appointed to select the next St. Louis County engineer, and another to his father on September 23 stating that his application for county engineer had been rejected and that he was unsure about his future in St. Louis. The last letter in Grant’s hand from St. Louis was written in February 1860 (See The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 1, pages 350-355 to see these letters).

So where was Grant in early September 1859? I am stumped. In any case, this lawsuit further reinforces the fact that Grant was badly impoverished and in debt by the time his family left St. Louis for Galena, Illinois. Probably no one involved in this case could have expected that Grant would be president ten years later.

Here are the files from the court record. Some of the pages are hard to read:

There have been a number of prominent Civil War historians who’ve stepped into the Confederate monument debate over the past month. A roundtable in Civil War Times offers some interesting commentaries from some of the heavy hitters, including William C. Davis, Gary Gallagher, and Lesley J. Gordon. Historian Caroline E. Janney also jumped into the discussion with an op-ed in the Washington Post. She argues that empty pedestals are “void of meaning all together” (a dubious claim that Kevin Levin questioned here) and that removing Confederate monuments erases and does a disservice to the past. American society needs Confederate monuments because “they force us to remember the worst parts of our history.”

To be sure, Janney is a wonderful historian whose work shows up in my own scholarship on the Indiana Grand Army of the Republic. But I think her perspective on the need to preserve all Confederate monuments regardless of context is mistaken. The assumption in this piece is that American society has forgotten (or runs the risk of forgetting) the history of the Civil War if these monuments are removed. This too is a dubious claim. Historians must be careful when they discuss a society’s “collective memory” of the past and think critically about whose voices they privilege as representing that collective when they propose to speak about it.

In the case of Confederate monuments, arguing that these icons “force us to remember the worst parts of our history” necessary requires us to ask: who in society has engaged in forgetting? Who needs a reminder about the Confederacy and the causes of the Civil War? What specifically do these monuments force us to remember about the past? Why have some people failed to remember the history of the Civil War despite the presence of these monuments for 100 years? What are we to do with monuments like the Liberty Place Monument in New Orleans that deliberately distort what happened in the past?

I thought about some of these questions during a recent visit to the Missouri History Museum to see a new exhibit on the history of the Civil Rights Movement in St. Louis. At one point in the exhibit there is a large board with three questions and a table with pens and sticky notes. Visitors are encouraged to answer these questions and place their sticky note on the wall:

Photo Credit: Nick Sacco

I love these feedback walls in museum spaces, and I like the questions posed by the exhibit here. But that first question on the left–“Why has so much of St. Louis’s civil rights history been overlooked?”–contains an implicit bias when it assumes that the city’s residents have in fact overlooked this history. In reading a few comments it became evident that many responders questioned this assumption. Of all the times I’ve been to the Missouri History Museum, this exhibit was the first one in which a majority of museum-goers were African American. And the ones leaving comments strongly asserted that they hadn’t forgotten that history. We were there. We are still fighting for our rights. We can’t forget what happened to our loved ones. We can’t forget history that so explicitly speaks to the core challenge of our lives and experiences as African Americans in this country. These comments were perhaps the most educational aspect of the whole exhibit.

So it bears repeating: who in society has forgotten the history of the Confederacy and the causes, context, and consequences of its short existence? The answer might be uncomfortable for those bent on defending all Confederate monuments regardless of context.

Cheers

To be clear: my position on this topic has been consistent in that I disagree with a one-size-fits-all approach for addressing Confederate or any other type of public iconography, and I think some icons will inevitably stay while others will go. Read recent essays I’ve written here and here for more of my thoughts on these discussions.

The folks at the Journal of the Civil War Era gave me another opportunity earlier this week to write on their blog, Muster. In this essay I briefly discuss the political life of Missouri politician and general Frank Blair, Jr., and his statue in St. Louis’s Forest Park. It’s a statue I’ve seen numerous times and one that, frankly, has a textual inscription that ignores Blair’s blatant racism and support for colonization of African Americans. My thinking on public iconography of late has centered on the inadequacy of the medium in actually conveying accurate historical content to viewers. As I state in the essay, more and more I feel like the work of educating people about historical events and people must start in the classroom and museum, not the public square.

Stay tuned for more essays on this blog in the near future. I have made a point of trying to get more of my essays published to larger platforms beyond this blog over the past year, but I still have a lot on my mind about history and memory that will find a home here in the future 🙂

A lot happened this week with regards to the St. Louis Confederate monument. On Thursday, June 8th, the top of the monument was removed as the first phase of its removal began. A city hall meeting took place that night about the monument, and Alderwoman Sharon Tyus was among a number of officials that brought up a bill that proposes to “identify and remove all Confederate-related statues, memorials, monuments, and street names from city-owned parks.” Equally important, it allows a museum to obtain the monument, provided that the institution raises the funds to move it to their institution.

The Missouri Civil War Museum has restated their willingness to accept the monument and has started a fundraising page to pay for transportation costs. Given the circumstances of the situation and the city’s determination to dismantle the statue, I believe the museum’s efforts to acquire and relocate the statue is the best option moving forward. Relocating the monument to a museum setting is a worthwhile, moderate option that allows future opportunities to educate people about the Civil War in Missouri and, hopefully, the history of the monument itself. The specifics of an interpretive program remain to be seen, but leaving the monument in a warehouse means no interpretive program at all. The Missouri Civil War Museum has grown tremendously since its opening in 2013 and is now one of top history-related sites worth visiting in St. Louis. I have full trust in the fact that the museum would be a good steward for the monument and I plan to donate to their campaign.

As I have written numerous times on this website, my views on Confederate iconography are nuanced and do not fall easily into the “Take em’ down” or “Leave em’ up” camps. In an earlier post about the St. Louis Confederate Monument I stated the following:

local communities should be empowered to determine what sorts of public iconography they want to recognize and commemorate in their public spaces. The people and events these icons represent should be reflective of that community’s values and be considered something worthy of honor. If a majority in the community don’t consider that icon worthy of honor or reflective of their values, then there are sufficient grounds for the community to discuss that icon’s future, whether that be remaining in the same spot, being moved to a cultural institution like a museum for added context, removed and obliterated, or some other solution. I personally am fine with removing the monument from Forest Park and am tired of the argument that removing any public historical icon is “erasing history,” especially when the history being removed is inaccurate.

That remains my position today. The city has a right to remove any monument it deems unfit for their property and I don’t resent them for taking this action. I didn’t necessarily support removing the monument, but I can live with it coming down. One firm position I hold is that any iconography located in a public space is inherently political, even if it’s intended primarily to “honor the soldiers.” Such iconography makes a statement about a community’s values and the politics of the time in which it was erected. The St. Louis Confederate Monument has always experienced some form of resistance within the community since its erection in 1914 (see museum professional Lisa Gilbert’s research on archived newspaper articles and a speech by Union veteran George Bailey against the monument for examples), but that resistance within the city has now arrived at a point where it can be safely concluded that many of the city’s residents are opposed to its presence in Forest Park and believe it doesn’t convey values that represent the community. That said, removal to a museum presents opportunities to educate Americans about the history of the Civil War while also potentially decreasing some of the political heat such a monument carries in a public space.

Not everyone will agree with me on these views, and that’s okay. We’ll see what happens from here.

Cheers

(Disclaimer: As with everything I post on Exploring the Past, the views I express are mine and mine alone. They do not represent my employer or anyone else but me).

The local NPR station in St. Louis, St. Louis Public Radio, has jumped into the discussion about the city’s Confederate monument with a recent “Pro & Con” feature about the monument’s future. One of the people the station interviewed was William Stage, a writer and photographer who took the “Pro” position in support of keeping up the monument. He stated, in part, that “erasing history” is bad. “It’s all of our history and maybe it’s good that it’s there for both the people who are offended by it and the people who enjoy it because it gives us something to talk about. It could be a springboard for dialogue.”

The problem I see with this argument is that no historical organization in St. Louis has ever taken steps to lead that dialogue, nor is there anyone who’s indicated a willingness to do it in this heated political moment. What would that dialogue look like? What steps would be taken after the dialogue to promote unity and reconciliation in the community? What cultural organization would be willing to take on the long-term expense, time, and effort necessary to interpret this monument after the dialogue has finished? What if a majority of St. Louisians aren’t interested in a dialogue or a history lesson?

As a native-born and current resident of St. Louis, I find myself still unsure what the best path forward for this monument is. The protests of the monument are becoming a political liability for the city government. Leaving the monument as is does not seem to be a practical situation moving forward, especially since I’d imagine that most of the city’s majority African American population is opposed to the monument. I have doubts about the effectiveness of writing a wayside marker to “add context” to the monument, although the current monument text is historically inaccurate Lost Cause nonsense that should be removed. I have also been disappointed with the lack of public discussion about the monument’s future, which is a great contrast to more democratic processes taking place in Baltimore, New Orleans, and numerous cities in Virginia on their Confederate monuments. To my knowledge there have been no votes taken by city residents or the Board of Alderman, no public meetings for local residents to share their perspectives, and no effort to educate the city’s residents on the monument’s history by any cultural institutions, including those of us at National Park Service sites in the area. Mayors Slay and Krewson have basically taken matters into their own hands, for better or worse.

As I have previously stated, local communities should be empowered to determine what sorts of public iconography they want to recognize and commemorate in their public spaces. The people and events these icons represent should be reflective of that community’s values and be considered something worthy of honor. If a majority in the community don’t consider that icon worthy of honor or reflective of their values, then there are sufficient grounds for the community to discuss that icon’s future, whether that be remaining in the same spot, being moved to a cultural institution like a museum for added context, removed and obliterated, or some other solution. I personally am fine with removing the monument from Forest Park and am tired of the argument that removing any public historical icon is “erasing history,” especially when the history being removed is inaccurate. My preference would be for a cultural institution in the city to take on the responsibility of interpreting this Confederate monument in a respectful way that educates residents about our city’s rich Civil War history. But for now it seems like we’ll be saying goodbye to the St. Louis Confederate Monument as it heads to a warehouse somewhere.

In my last post I excerpted a Letter to the Editor in the August 4th, 1860 edition of the proslavery Missouri Republican from “Slaveholder.” The letter explained why voting for Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas for President was the only way for both the Union and slavery to continue peacefully in the United States. It was a fascinating plea against secession as a form of protecting enslaved property, and it highlighted the thoughts of many proslavery Missourians as the country spiraled towards war less than a year later.

In that very same issue of the Missouri Republican–on the front page, no less–the paper posted a comprehensive of listing of auctions and items for sale in St. Louis. And if you look closely enough, you’ll see a listing about a runaway slave and a couple listings from Bernard M. Lynch, the city’s most prosperous slave trader. One of those ads is for an enslaved boy “between ten and twelve years of age,” conveniently placed right next to ads for furnaces, steam engines, and other pieces of property.

I’ve been reading Historian Jelani Cobb’s essay on the four New Orleans Confederate monuments that have either come down or are slated to come down soon. I think we have to be careful about who we generalize as opposing the removal of these monuments and why they do so, but he makes the point that many protestors–some of which are making death threats against the city’s Mayor and/or using racist language and Confederate flags to intimidate the city’s African American population–are enamored with a glorified “a-la-carte relationship with history”:

the protesters who lined up to defend the monument wish to maintain an à-la-carte relationship with history. They have cloaked their defense of the monuments by presenting it as a recognition of the valor of the men who fought for the Confederate cause. But that excuse falls flat when recognizing, for instance, that there is no monument in New Orleans to the mass slave revolt that took place in 1811, when some two hundred men who had endured the brutality of bondage marched on the city, killing two white men and burning plantations as they went. This is not the version of valor recognized by the crowd before the Lee memorial, or those phoning in death threats to Landrieu’s office.

I feel like we have a tendency in the United States to glorify and valorize the nation’s soldiers, past and present, without assessing why they went to war in the first place. The exceptions to that theory are probably the Revolutionary War and World War II.

As long as we commemorate the Confederacy’s legacy purely in terms of its soldiers’ military service and frame the erection of Confederate monuments as an apolitical extension of that commemoration and nothing else, we will downplay the politics of why the Civil War occurred in the first place. And we will minimize the stories, experiences, and legacy of thousands of ten-year-old enslaved boys and girls who were sold out of slave pens in the Land of the Free while Lee and Beauregard marched to Dixie.